Mark Birbeck wrote:
>Mikko,
>
>I don't understand why this is getting so complicated. There are plenty of
>use-cases for something that comes between two items (a separator) in a
>*semantic* way. That's not presentational, and the two objects being
>separated are not something that might need a name. It's like a 'pause' when
>you are reading.
>
>
The two objects separated are, as you say, separate objects. Yet you
insist on putting them into the same container, without individual
containers.
I think a good maxim would be, "Every object gets its own container." If
no available container tag fits the requirements, then perhaps we should
add another container element. But not put an empty element in-between.
There's plenty of use cases for <separator>, you say. Well, there are
several use cases for <br>, but it still can be completely replaced by
the <l> tag. Which I, personally, much prefer, because I like to keep my
documents generic, and that means making every structural element
(including explicitely separated lines) directly addressable as the
content of a single tag.
Objects separated by <br> or <sep> are not addressable. They are
reflected only by a text node (a rather unstable object that, for
example, cannot have an ID) in the infoset and the DOM, and it's not
possible to select them using CSS. That alone makes these tags inferior
to container tags.
Sebastian Redl